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FROM A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON.

HENRY, EARL MERTOUN, HAVING WAITED ON THOROLD, LORD TRESHAM, TO SOLICIT THE HAND OF HIS SISTER, MILDRED, HER COUSIN GUENDOLEN COMMUNICATES THE RESULT.

SCENE III.-MILDRED's Chamber. A painted window overlooks the park. MILDRED and GUENDOLEN.

Guen. Now, Mildred, spare those pains. I have not left

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Our talkers in the Library, and climbed
The wearisome ascent to this your bower
In company with you,—I have not dared
Nay, worked such prodigies as sparing you
Lord Mertoun's pedigree before the flood,
Which Thorold seemed in very act to tell-
-Or bringing Austin to pluck up that most
Firm-rooted heresy-your suitor's eyes,

He would maintain, were grey instead of blue—
I think I brought him to contrition !—Well,
I have not done such things (all to deserve
A minute's quiet cousin's-talk with you),
To be dismissed so coolly!

Mil.

Guendolen,

What have I done . . . what could suggest.

Guen.

Do I not comprehend you'd be alone
To throw those testimonies in a heap,
Thorold's enlargings, Austin's bṛeyities,

There, there!

With that poor, silly, heartless Guendolen's
Ill-timed, misplaced, attempted smartnesses—
And sift their sense out? now, I come to spare you
Nearly a whole night's labour. Ask and have!
Demand, be answered! Lack I ears and eyes?
Am I perplexed which side of the rock-table,
The Conqueror dined on when he landed first,
Lord Mertoun's ancestor was bidden take-
The bow-hand or the arrow-hand's great meed?
Mildred, the Earl has soft blue eyes!

Mil. Did he

...

My brotheryou said that he received him well? Guen. If I said only "well" I said not much— Oh, stay-which brother?

Mil.

Thorold! who-who else?

Guen. Thorold (a secret) is too proud by half-
Nay, hear me out—with us he's even gentler
Than we are with our birds. Of this great House
The least retainer that e'er caught his glance
Would die for him, real dying-no mere talk:
And in the world, the court, if men would cite
The perfect spirit of honour, Thorold's name
Rises of its clear nature to their lips.
But he should take men's homage, trust in it,
And care no more about what drew it down.
He has desert, and that, acknowledgment;
Is he content?

Mil.

You wrong him, Guendolen.

Guen. He's proud, confess; so proud with brood

ing o'er

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Mil.

Dear Guendolen, 'tis late!

When yonder purple pane the climbing moon

Pierces, I know 'tis midnight.

Guen.

Well, that Thorold

Should rise up from such musings, and receive
One come audaciously to graft himself

Into this peerless stock, yet find no flaw,

No slightest spot in such an one ...

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I said how gracefully his mantle lay
Beneath the rings of his light hair?

Brown hair!

Mil.
Guen. Brown? why, it is brown-how could you

know that?

Mil. How? did not you—Oh Austin 'twas, declared His hair was light, not brown-my head !—and, look, The moon-beam purpling the dark chamber! Sweet, Good night!

Guen. Forgive me-sleep the soundlier for me! [Going, she turns suddenly.

Perdition! all's discovered!

Mildred!

Thorold finds

-That the Earl's greatest of all grandmothers

Was grander daughter still-to that fair dame

Whose garter slipped down at the famous dance!

[Goes.

Needs

Mil. Is she can she be really gone at last?
My heart! I shall not reach the window.
Must I have sinned much, so to suffer!

[She lifts the small lamp which is suspended
before the Virgin's image in the window,
and places it by the purple pane.]
There!

[She returns to the seat in front. Mildred and Mertoun ! Mildred, with consent Of all the world and Thorold, Mertoun's bride! Too late! 'Tis sweet to think of, sweeter still To hope for, that this blessed end soothes up The curse of the beginning; but I know It comes too late-'twill sweetest be of all To dream my soul away and die upon!

[A noise without. The voice! Oh, why, why glided sin the snake Into the Paradise Heaven meant us both?

[The window opens softly. A low voice sings.

There's a woman like a dew-drop, she's so purer than the

purest;

And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the

surest:

And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre

Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape

cluster,

Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music. . . call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble!

[A figure wrapped in a mantle appears at the window.

And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights were moonless,

Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless,

If you loved me not!" And I who-(ah, for words of flame!)

adore her!

Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her

[He enters-approaches her seat, and bends over her. I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me !

[The Earl throws off his slouched hat and long cloak.

My very heart sings, so I sing, beloved!

Mil. Sit, Henry-do not take my hand.
Mer.

The meeting that appalled us both so much

Is ended.

'Tis mine!

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Our happiness would, as you say, exceed
The whole world's best of blisses: we-do we
Deserve that? Utter to your soul, what mine
Long since, beloved, has grown used to hear,
Like a death-knell, so much regarded once,
And so familiar now; this will not be !

Mer. Oh, Mildred, have I met your brother's face,
Compelled myself-if not to speak untruth,
Yet to disguise, to shun, to put aside

The truth, as what had e'er prevailed on me
Save you, to venture? Have I gained at last
Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams,
And waking thoughts' sole apprehension too?
Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break
On the strange unrest of our night, confused
With rain and stormy flaw-and will you see
No dripping blossoms, no fire-tinted drops

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